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Salah Abdeslam says attacks ‘nothing personal’ and François Hollande ‘knew risks’ of targeting ISThe sole survivor of the jihadist cell alleged to have killed 130 people in Paris six years ago has told his trial the attacks were revenge for French airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, and that France had known “the risks” of attacking Islamic State.“We fought France, we attacked France, we targeted the civilian population – but it was nothing personal against them,” Salah Abdeslam said of the coordinated gun and suicide bomb attacks across Paris on 13 November 2015, which began at the national football stadium, continued at bars and restaurants and ended with a massacre inside a rock gig at the Bataclan concert hall. Continue reading...

The director’s latest film, in which he stars as a former rodeo star who travels to Mexico to save a friend’s son, is an inert disappointmentCry Macho, the new 70s-set film from the world’s most prolific nonagenarian director Clint Eastwood, has endured an almost 50 year journey to the screen, a journey that, after actually watching Cry Macho, is of far more interest than what’s ended up in front of us. After his screenplay was rejected in the 70s, writer N Richard Nash turned it into a novel before then pitching the exact same screenplay, which this time got bought by Fox. Eastwood was offered it in the late 80s but decided to star in The Dead Pool instead, while offering to direct Robert Mitchum in the role. In the 90s, Roy Scheider signed on but production was never completed. Over time, Pierce Brosnan and Burt Lancaster were also attached before in 2003, Arnold Schwarzenegger picked it as his next role but stepped back when he became governor. As his term ended, he announced that it would be his next project but just as production was set to start, his affair with a household employee who mothered his child caused it to fold.Related: The Eyes of Tammy Faye review – Jessica Chastain nails gaudy TV evangelist Continue reading...

CBS programme has caused a social media storm for its crass choice of format and ill-qualified judging panelProducers have billed it as an exciting new twist on reality television: an X-Factor style competition between campaigners that will give them the chance to lobby world leaders at the G20.But The Activist, a show announced last week by the American network CBS, has already learned to its cost that people power can be unpredictable, ruthless and highly effective. Continue reading...

Education secretary Gavin Williamson also sacked in reshuffle, along with justice and communities secretaries

Lawyers say government data for first six months of 2021 raises questions over possible racial profilingMore than 60% of EU citizens stopped and questioned at ports by British border officials post-Brexit are from Romania, figures have shown, raising questions from lawyers about possible racial profiling.Data issued by the government shows that in the first six months of the year 7,249 people were stopped either at ferry ports or on Eurotunnel and Eurostar vehicle and train services. Continue reading...

Un Mismo Equipo allows unemployed and often homeless people to advertise their skills to potential employersThe Covid crisis came scything through Alejandro’s* life with a speed, ferocity and vindictive thoroughness that stuns him to this day. Almost overnight, the widowed craftsman’s business supplying leather pieces to shops, markets and the military folded, his meagre savings gave out, his father died from coronavirus, the electricity was cut off and he found himself relying on food banks to feed himself and his teenage daughter.“Things were hard before the pandemic,” he says. “But if you’d told me one day that everything that’s happened to me would happen to me, I’d never have believed you. Continue reading...

A province that has long boasted of its loose coronavirus restrictions has also been the site of North America’s highest caseloadsA surge in coronavirus cases has pushed the healthcare system in the Canadian province of Alberta to the verge of collapse, as healthcare workers struggle against mounting exhaustion and a growing anti-vaccine movement in the region.The province warned this week that its ICU capacity was strained, with more people requiring intensive care than any other point during the pandemic – nearly all of them unvaccinated. Continue reading...

Police Service of Northern Ireland says the men have been detained under the Terrorism ActPolice in Northern Ireland have arrested four men as part of the investigation into the murder of the journalist Lyra McKee in 2019.The four men, aged 19, 20, 21 and 33, were arrested under the Terrorism Act 2006 on Wednesday morning. They were in the Derry area, and are now being questioned at Musgrave police station in Belfast. Continue reading...

Jean-Gabriel Périot’s slow-burn doc asks current students to re-enact films from a different political era and share their thoughtsFilmed in collaboration with students from Ivry-sur-Seine on the edge of Paris, Our Defeats is a snapshot of their feelings about 21st-century society and commitment, or lack of it, to political change. But it conducts this litmus test with a twist: having them first stage scenes from films, including largely soixante-huitard-flavoured ones by Jean-Luc Godard and Chris Marker, featuring disenchanted workers, fulminating strikers and revolutionary manifestos. And then – comprehension exercise-style – it asks the actors what they think of the ideas expressed in each.Confronted with teenagers struggling to define “trade union” or “revolution”, initially it feels like juxtaposing them with such fervent material is a passive-aggressive move on the part of director Jean-Gabriel Périot. There is indeed a striking gap between the often highly charged and persuasive performances they give, and the embarrassed bemusement with which many engage with Périot’s questions. But these rec-room Brechtian tactics seem to have a double purpose: to highlight the theatre inherent in all forms of politics while also to suggest that only by leaping between watcher and actor, and actively grappling with the concepts batted about, do they actually start to have any meaning. Continue reading...

Melbourne public transport will be shut for six hours on Saturday in a bid to prevent anti-lockdown protests; Deadliest day for NSW as state records 12 deaths and 1,259 cases; Berejiklian government will ‘seek legal advice’ over venues refusing entry to unvaccinated people; Victoria records 423 cases and two deaths; no new cases in Qld – follow updates live

More than 1,100 staff including 250 auditors involved in ‘improper answer sharing’, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board finds

The movement launched a generation of leftist activists –and gave them a vision of real changeI sprinted down 7th Avenue, down 6th Avenue, across Canal Street. Trucks and cars stood still as the bodies flooding the street halted their movement. People walked out of stores to cheer. Children pressed their faces to backseat windows while parents held up peace signs from the front.Minutes earlier, I’d been standing in a crowd in New York City’s Union Square. Then the running had commenced, outpacing the police as we took the streets on our way to join another march. Continue reading...

Public health order is ‘uncharted territory’ and government is seeking advice, premier says

President praises ‘splendid combat skills’ and resolution to defend airspace amid near-daily infringements of its airspace by ChinaTaiwanese fighter jets landed on a makeshift runway on a road on Wednesday as annual drills reached their peak, practising skills that would be needed in the event of an attack by China.In exercises overseen by President Tsai Ing-wen, three aircraft – an F-16, French-made Mirage and a Ching-kuo Indigenous Defence Fighter plus an E-2 Hawk-Eye early warning aircraft – landed in rural southern Pingtung county on a road specially designed to be straight and flat for rapid conversion into a runway. Continue reading...

Boris Johnson announces restrictions that could be used in England if NHS comes under pressure

A 20-member panel questioned whether a single explanation fitted all symptoms and raised possibility of psychological suggestionCuba has issued its most detailed report to date from prominent local scientists criticizing allegations that US and Canadian diplomats were subject to mysterious attacks while posted on the island and developed health problems.Related: Microwave weapons that could cause Havana Syndrome exist, experts say Continue reading...

The socialite arrived at the prestigious event dressed head to foot in black - complete with a full head covering. Is it a tribute to Kanye’s new album or bondage chic?Name: Fashionable fetish wear.Appearance: Chic bondage apparel, probably in black. Continue reading...

Utility Point and People’s Energy are the latest of seven companies to fail in the past year amid record energy market pricesAbout half a million households will be moved to a new energy supplier after Utility Point and People’s Energy became the latest energy companies to go bust amid record energy market prices.The latest casualties bring the total number of failed energy suppliers to seven in the past year, including five within the past five weeks, as the market price for gas and electricity has reached new all-time highs. Continue reading...

Move agreed by Speakers of Commons and Lords follows imposition of sanctions on British MPs by BeijingThe new Chinese ambassador to the UK has been barred from parliament by the Speakers in the Commons and Lords following the imposition of sanctions on British MPs by Beijing.The new ambassador, Zheng Zeguang, was due to attend a meeting of the broadly pro-Chinese all-party group on China, but following a letter from MPs sanctioned by China, including the former Conservative party leader Iain Duncan Smith, the Commons Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, has said the meeting is not appropriate. Continue reading...

Boy’s maternal grandfather already under investigation after cable car crash survivor, six, was taken to IsraelThe maternal grandmother of a six-year-old boy who is the sole survivor of a cable car crash in northern Italy is being investigated over the alleged abduction of the child after he was flown to Israel at the weekend against the wishes of his paternal relatives in Italy, according to local press reports.Eitan Biran, whose parents and two-year-old brother died in the Stresa-Mottarone aerial tramway crash on 23 May, has been at the centre of a bitter custody battle between relatives in Italy and Israel. Continue reading...

Footage filmed from a car window shows flooding on Tower Bridge in London after torrential flooding in the capital on Tuesday.The Met Office issued a yellow weather warning for rain, warning of travel disruption and possible flooding of homes and businesses Continue reading...

Brendon Prince about to become first to circumnavigate mainland on a standup paddleboard, all to raise awareness of water safetyHe has had close encounters with orcas, sharks and more dolphins than he could count. He has negotiated fierce tidal flows and picked his way through offshore windfarms, shipping lanes and busy ports.After a 141-day adventure, Brendon Prince, a 48-year-old former teacher, is about to become the first person to complete a circumnavigation of mainland Britain on a standup paddle board, covering nearly 2,500 miles. Continue reading...

US president’s Covid plan is more ambitious than current performance and targets set at G7 in Cornwall

Elijah Wood among stars to laud project of Nicolas Gentile to transform land into personal ‘shire’Lord of the Rings actors including Elijah Wood have expressed their support for the project of an Italian man who lives as a hobbit and is building his personal “shire” from JRR Tolkien’s fictional Middle-earth in Italy.In a series of video messages posted on Monday on Instagram, the actors who played the hobbits in Peter Jackson’s movie expressed their appreciation for the project by Nicolas Gentile, a 37-year-old Italian pastry chef who dresses and lives as a hobbit and whose goal is to transform 2 hectares (5 acres) of land in the countryside of Bucchianico, near the town of Chieti in Abruzzo, into a hobbit village. Continue reading...

Over the past four years, photographer Giles Clarke has reported from Yemen for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), documenting the tragedy of a country devastated by war but also the resilience of its people. The photojournalism festival Visa pour l’image is featuring his work at an exhibition in Perpignan, France Continue reading...

Almost half a trillion dollars of support a year harms people’s health, the climate and drives inequalityAlmost 90% of the $540bn in global subsidies given to farmers every year are “harmful”, a startling UN report has found.This agricultural support damages people’s health, fuels the climate crisis, destroys nature and drives inequality by excluding smallholder farmers, many of whom are women, according to the UN agencies. Continue reading...

European parliament resolution criticises bloc’s patchwork policy, as some countries ignore recent rulingsThe continued failure of EU governments to respect the residency and benefits rights of same-sex partners as they move between countries in Europe has been condemned in a European parliament resolution.Marriages and registered partnerships formed in one member state should be recognised in all of them, with same-sex spouses and partners treated equally to others, according to a text supported by 387 MEPs, with 161 voting in opposition and 123 abstaining. Continue reading...

Labour leader Jonas Gahr Støre hopes to create coalition including Centre party and Socialist LeftNorway’s left-leaning opposition parties have begun talks to form a new coalition government after winning a landslide victory in elections dominated by the climate crisis and the future of the country’s huge oil and gas industry.The Labour party leader, Jonas Gahr Støre, is hoping to persuade the agrarian Centre party and left-wing Socialist Left to join a government that would have 89 MPs, four more than needed for an absolute majority in the 169-seat parliament. Continue reading...

JCVI recommends Pfizer/BioNTech shot be used regardless of vaccine received first time around

One incident caught on video appears to be killing of man in uniformThe Taliban have been accused of killing 20 civilians in Afghanistan’s Panjshir valley, with the apparent killing of a man in uniform being caught on video.The Panjshir valley was the last area to hold out against the Taliban when it swept to power last month, and was where anti-Taliban opposition forces briefly rallied before being overrun. Continue reading...

The cable news personality also defended people who buy fake proof of vaccination against Covid-19In an interview, Tucker Carlson admitted: “I lie.”The Fox News host was speaking to Dave Rubin. The YouTube host and conservative author asked about how Carlson felt about CNN hosts Brian Stelter, Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon, who Rubin called “clown people”. Continue reading...

Health secretary updates parliament on pandemic winter plans, including proposals for booster jabs for over-50s and the option for 12- to 15-year-olds to get the jab

Russian president is not sick but will no longer hold in-person meetings this week, says Kremlin

Heidi Ewing’s first narrative film uses elements of documentary in the true story of a relationship between Mexican immigrants in the USRevolving around a tender true love story, this first narrative feature from seasoned documentary director Heidi Ewing (which won a couple of awards at Sundance) is a fascinating – though at times uneven – blend of film styles. Alternating between fictional re-enactments and real-life vignettes, it is a hybrid drama that charts the relationship between Ivan and Gerardo, two undocumented Mexican immigrants living in the US.The evocative rumbles of the New York subway train act as an enigmatic conduit to Ivan’s youth in the Mexican city of Puebla. Bearing a striking resemblance to the real-life character, Armando Espitia portrays the young Ivan with a raffish charm. Struggling with a dead-end job and unable to provide for his son from a previous relationship, Ivan finds solace in his love-at-first-sight romance with the more privileged Gerardo, whose younger self is played by Christian Vázquez. Despite their differing backgrounds, the pair share similar emotional turmoil and guilt, fostered by their inability to live openly as a gay couple in early 1990s Mexico. Continue reading...

Brexit minster says timetable has been delayed due to ‘longer-lasting impacts’ of pandemic on businesses

Frank Fishwick, 86, died after being punched in face near his homeA teenager has been been charged with the manslaughter of an army veteran who was assaulted outside his own home.Frank Fishwick, 86, was found with a facial injury after police were called to The Paddock in Preston, Lancashire, on Friday afternoon. Continue reading...

As 22 states pass or consider legislation on race and racism discourse in classrooms, some Black teachers are reminded daily that their racial identity is a liabilityHistory teacher Valanna White filed into the auditorium the first week of August for the customary back-to-school all-staff meeting at Walker Valley high school in Cleveland, Tennessee. What she heard shifted her outlook for the coming school year. On 1 July, a new law took effect banning the teaching of critical race theory in Tennessee public schools. White listened intently as a school district official gave a vague overview informing the group that critical race theory was prohibited, though without fully explaining what critical race theory entails. Instead, teachers were told a list of actions – such as discussing racial discrimination – that were forbidden.

He lied to me about watching porn and now only wants sex when he’s already aroused. It makes me feel like I no longer turn him onWhen I married my husband, one of the conditions was: no pornography. We have been married 25 years. In 2018, I discovered my husband had been watching porn regularly for six years. I found out because it gave him erectile dysfunction. He said he would give it up, which he did for 18 months. Then he started again. I was furious. We went to counselling. My husband only wants to have what I consider lazy sex. He wants sex only when he wakes up with an erection. I have told him that it is important to me to make love and have sex at night, too. I am concerned the past long-term regular porn use has affected his desire for intimacy and lovemaking, since he wants sex only when he has already got a hard on. It makes me feel like I don’t turn him on.This is not necessarily about you – or your husband’s desire, or lack of it, for you – and his pornography use may not be related to his needs regarding the timing of sex with you. Many men are so afraid of not being able to achieve an erection that they approach their partners for sex only when they are already aroused – and for him that may be mornings only. Continue reading...

Disgruntled investors voice anger at headquarters as company appoints advisers and says firesale of assets won’t cover debtsProperty giant China Evergrande Group has said that it cannot sell properties and other assets fast enough to service its massive $300bn debts, and that its cashflow was under “tremendous pressure”.Only hours after angry investors besieged its Shenzhen headquarters and the company denied it was set for bankruptcy, Evergrande issued a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange saying that a significant drop in sales would continue this month, which was likely to further deteriorate its liquidity and cash flow. Continue reading...

The prime minister trails the Conservatives in polls but has found new impetus in pursuit of a third term to secure his legacy

Less than 400,000 first vaccine doses required to put Australia beyond 70%; Victoria records three deaths and 445 new cases; one case locally acquired in Queensland and one in quarantine; ACT announces return to school for year 12 students from term four; discussions over home quarantine system continue – follow updates live

Emergency teams found vehicle on fire after being called to scene on Great Western Road in Notting HillThree people have died after a car crashed into a residential block in west London, the Metropolitan police have said.Officers and emergency crews were called to Great Western Road in Notting Hill at about 4.50am and found the vehicle on fire. The flames were extinguished but three people were pronounced dead at the scene. Continue reading...

In the streaming age, sleeper hits such as Schitt’s Creek and The Morning Show have replaced quick successes, confirming culture is a marathon not a sprint

The long theatre shutdown in New York has taken its toll on the industry but a renewed and reinvigorated outlook towards diversity could have a major impactWhen Ruben Santiago-Hudson walks on stage at the Manhattan Theatre Club on Tuesday night, the electric charge between actor and audience will spark back to life. Then the healing will begin.“It is the balm that we all need right now, not just on stage, but in our city,” says Santiago-Hudson, writer, performer and director of Lackawanna Blues, one of a record seven works by Black playwrights opening on Broadway this autumn. “It’s a necessity, it’s in us as human beings. Theatre has always been the great gathering place – church and theatre.” Continue reading...

Campaigners say draft regulation contains many loopholes, including exclusion of Cerrado and PantanalThe fragile Cerrado grasslands and the Pantanal wetlands, both under threat from soy and beef exploitation, have been excluded from a European Union draft anti-deforestation law, campaigners have said, and there are many other concerning loopholes.The European Commission has pledged to introduce a law aimed at preventing beef, palm oil and other products linked to deforestation from being sold in the EU single market of 450 million consumers. But campaigners said a leaked impact assessment reveals “significant omissions” in the plans, including the exclusion of endangered grasslands and wetlands, as well as products that raise environmental concerns, such as rubber and maize. Continue reading...

Nine months after the towers fell, Lucas Foglia visited the diverse boroughs of New York with his camera to ‘show the city healing … but with scars’ Continue reading...

Head of International Federation of Journalists says ‘future is black’ for 1,300 journalists still in countryJournalism in Afghanistan is in danger of disappearing, according to the head of the International Federation of Journalists, who said that reporters trying to continue working under the Taliban have been subjected to beatings and imprisonment.“The Taliban don’t want to make too many waves right now, but they will want to take control of everything, including the foreign press in Afghanistan,” Anthony Bellanger, the IFJ secretary general, told the Guardian. “And as often happens in such situations, foreign journalists will be considered agents of foreign governments. Continue reading...

Women’s protests led to prohibition in Bihar but can alcohol bans end domestic abuse and harassment?Holding sticks and brooms, the women marched to the liquor shop in the centre of Konar village. It was a rare ambush in the staunchly patriarchal Bihar state in eastern India. But they were at breaking point.“In every village women were troubled by alcohol. Men harassed them on the streets. Husbands beat them at home,” says Sunita Devi, 52, a former seamstress who led the crowd. “When they saw us they gained courage that we can come together and fight.” Continue reading...

German chancellor’s consensus-building approach no longer sustainable in crisis-hit Europe, report saysAfter 15 years of “Merkelism” the German chancellor’s neutral, consensus-building approach means many Europeans accept her country as the EU’s leader – but post-Angela Merkel Berlin will have to radically change tack, according to a study.“Angela Merkel has come to embody a strong and stable Germany, positioning herself as Europe’s anchor though more than a decade of crises,” said Piotr Buras, the co-author of the report by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). Continue reading...

Chef doubts The Naked Chef would be commissioned in current climate as TV bosses prefer ‘to play it safe’He was not the first TV chef, but nobody is more responsible for ushering in two decades of wall-to-wall cookery shows than Jamie Oliver.Now he has revealed that he has largely given up watching them himself, turning instead to YouTube for the most cutting-edge recipes. Continue reading...